Household cleaning appliances include various appliances such as dishwashers and washing machines. The household cleaning appliance may have a controller that implements a number of pre-programmed cycles of operation having one or more operating parameters. The controller may control a motor or rotate the drum according to one of the pre-programmed cycles of operation. The controller may control the motor or rotate the drum at the same speeds for a given pre-programmed cycle of operation regardless of the characteristics of the items loaded into the household cleaning appliance, or changes in the system. There are a great many different makes and models of household cleaning appliances currently in the marketplace. They each support different cycles, have different cycle times, inlet and outlet water flow rates, different methods and times of introducing treating chemistry, different amounts of wash and rinse phases, etc. It would be advantageous to have a smart retrofittable device that could regulate these parameters externally and detect aberrations in the cycles of operation, if any.